


no expectations

by nezstorm



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Arthur Morgan Lives, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 15:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/pseuds/nezstorm
Summary: Arthur didn’t know how or why he woke up, but he opened his eyes to see the sun being slowly swallowed up by the horizon.





	no expectations

**Author's Note:**

> be gentle. this is my first RDR2 fic. i have some ideas on continuing this, but we'll see.

Arthur didn’t know how or why he woke up, but he opened his eyes to see the sun being slowly swallowed up by the horizon, the sky bathed in pinks and purples, when he thought he’d never have the chance to again. He’d made peace he wouldn’t, made sure his people, his family was taken care of as much as he could before he’d reach this: this mountain, the last fight with Micah, the last farewell to the father Dutch had been.

 

But he was still breathing and he might be a goddamn fool, but even he wasn’t stupid enough to keep lying out in the open when he heard the first wolf howl, calling its pack.

 

His crawl down the mountain was neither fast nor dignified, but he made it down, found a horse that must have belonged to one of the pinkertons and… rode off. 

 

He had no direction, no purpose. He had been so sure he was done for. Hell, maybe he’d keel over on the next turn, this moment of reprieve only a joke played on him by life for all the bad he’d done, all the killing and robbing, all the lies. 

 

So for now, he’d just ride until he couldn’t hold the reins anymore. 

 

Maybe there was something more to the herbs Rains Fall advised him to take, he wondered briefly, when the night was close to end and the horse was still keeping stride. Maybe some unknown force decided that Arthur’s time has not yet come.

 

Maybe this was the afterlife and he’d find Isaac at the end of the road, playing with Copper, Eliza not far behind. And Sean, Hosea and Lenny. Even Kieran.

 

Or maybe this was his punishment, this naive hope he had, and he’d have to live on after everything fell apart and all he had scattered on the wind. 

 

For now, the horse still had the strength to go, the road lead west. The sunrise was all he had. 

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [come live (by my side)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17644415) by [nezstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/pseuds/nezstorm)




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